A Home for the Holidays

As we began our Lessons & Carols worship, our bishop bid us “remember, in [Christ’s] name, the poor and helpless, the cold, the hungry, and the oppressed.” With your help, we can do more than remember.

A local couple who’ve been clients at the St. Margaret’s Outreach Center for three years lost their home long ago. Through hard work and support, they conquered a drug addiction and now have a steady income. But tonight their home is not even a manger, but a hiding place in a nearby drainage ditch.

Your generous and tax-deductible gift will benefit Desert Friends of Music, who made this evening and other excellent music possible, and half will create a new home for the holidays in time for move-in before Christmas.

Let’s rejoice God’s heart and extend dignity and safety to God’s people, and with angelic hosts proclaim, “Christ is born in Bethlehem.”

Sometimes life is tough. And trying to pull one’s self out of the cycle of homelessness is near impossible without help. Today, we can help. There is a couple living among us. They are members of our community. They work, they attend church multiple days a week and they always make sure the little dog they rescued from the pound has plenty of food and water, and goes to the vet when necessary. They are good people … and they are homeless.

When you and I go to the safety and warmth of our homes, they go to the ditch. It is the safest, warmest place they can find. And they wake up in the morning and take to the streets for their daily activities. As the sun sets, they quietly fade into the background until daybreak. We can change this. We must change this.

Chet Hecht

About the Outreach Center

The St. Margaret’s Outreach Center, located at 44710 San Pablo Ave. in Palm Desert, provides food, clothing, and referrals to families, adults, seniors and children in our community. In the last month alone, The Center distributed more than 20,000 pounds of food to 800 clients representing 3200 family members. Our team of 30 volunteers works in partnership with The FIND Food Bank, the US Department of Agriculture, Hidden Harvest and others to bring hope, encouragement, and the love of God to our neighbors year round.

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The Rev. Dan Rondeau, Associate Rector Emeritus at St. Margaret's, and current Vicar of St. Hugh of Lincoln in Idyllwild, has been hospitalized for several days for a recurrence of vasculitis. Treatment with steroids and an immunosuppressant has begun. He also is being treated for Guillain-Barré syndrome, and is slowly recovering. Dan is likely to be in the hospital through...

Camp Stevens Retreat Gary Hall May 11-13, 2018 “There are three things, basically, that I write about—language, landscape, and the idea of God.” That’s former U.S. poet laureate Charles Wright, speaking in a 1992 interview. Wright is hardly unique in his preoccupations. Poets from Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman to Ted Hughes and Alice Oswald have explored the language-landscape-God connection...

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